In recent years, in a semiconductor device manufacturing process, semiconductor substrates such as a silicon wafer, a compound semiconductor wafer and the like become larger in diameter and thinner in thickness. A semiconductor substrate having a large diameter and a thin thickness may have a warp or a crack during a transfer operation or a grinding process. Thus, in the semiconductor device manufacturing process, the semiconductor substrate is reinforced by bonding a support substrate to the semiconductor substrate. Then, the reinforced semiconductor substrate is transferred or subjected to a grinding process and subsequently, the support substrate is delaminated from the reinforced semiconductor substrate.
By way of example, a first holding unit may hold the semiconductor substrate while a second holding unit may hold the support substrate. The support substrate may be delaminated from the reinforced semiconductor substrate by vertically moving an outer peripheral portion of the second holding unit.
There still exists a need in the related art to improve an efficiency of a delamination process. Such an improvement of efficiency may be requested even in a manufacturing technique such as a SOI (Silicon On Insulator) accompanied by substrate delamination.
For example, conventionally, a delaminated semiconductor substrate is held by a first holding unit from an upper side, namely in a state where a bonding surface of the semiconductor substrate to be bonded with a support substrate is oriented downward. As such, in order to clean the bonding surface of the semiconductor substrate using a cleaning device, it is sometimes necessary to invert the delaminated semiconductor substrate after receiving the same from the first holding unit. This may hinder a throughput enhancement.